Ever So Silent

by Christopher Little

  Chief of Police Archie Thorne, Emma’s dad, was beside himself with pride.

  Sophie and her parents stopped by police headquarters one morning to thank Emma. The Chronicle sent a photographer to happy-snap the occasion. Sophie declared herself “un-traumatized” by the event. Although childless, Emma liked kids, and she was happy for Sophie.

  The post office worker suffered a pelvic fracture and several broken ribs. Joe Henderson was locked up in the Connecticut Department of Correction’s Hospital in Somers. Joe faced a number of charges. He was in way deeper shit than his previous DUI.

  Even Georgia Foster, her husband’s reclusive twin sister, telephoned.

  “Thank you so much for saving Sophie’s life. Since you and Will don’t have any children, she’s as close to a niece as I’m likely to get.” Then Georgia added, “Sophie being rescued from abduction was a life-changing event for me.”

  A strange thing to say. But Emma’s relationship with Georgia was fraught enough already. Emma didn’t bother to seek an explanation. Instead, she thanked her and ended the conversation.

  On the work front, at least, Emma basked in her brief celebrity.

  At home … another story entirely.

  Will seemed to be getting worse each day. He either didn’t or couldn’t understand his wife’s micro-moment of glory. She didn’t blame him. When he didn’t react to the Chronicle’s headline, she dropped the subject.

  That Friday—the day Will Foster vanished—was otherwise perfect.

  Emma steered her cruiser onto River Street, where the chase had started two weeks ago. The leaves were such a vital green that it was no wonder folks in the northwest corner of Connecticut spent their winters longing for the month of May. The former mill town would never be pretty. But the way the sun felt on her face that day and the way the whipped cream clouds distracted her from the shuttered mills and their broken windows gave Hampshire its best shot.

  Emma Thorne liked to think that Hampshire, Connecticut, had four spines. Together, they formed the backbone of the town. Main Street, which ran east-west, had four lanes, divided by a median strip. Hanging from the lampposts, purple banners proclaimed, “Hampshire has Heart.” The Broken River paralleled Main Street. A row of dilapidated mill buildings cluttered the south shore. River Street ran along the back of the mills, where, generations ago, employees had arrived for work. Despite the cheery signs, the truth was that much of the heart had left Hampshire.

  A call came over her mobile radio. A minor MVA on the other side of town. Minor injuries. Another officer on patrol, Max Beyersdorf, took the call. The car crash dispatch interrupted an increasingly rare, peaceful moment. She wasn’t sure what caused her jarring reaction: memories of her recent car chase or her husband.

  The frail threads that suspended Emma’s life intruded once again. Rarely did Hampshire seem sweeter than her marriage. That day it did. There was plenty of evidence that her husband’s depression was worsening. His was an inky hole. After five years as a cop, Emma had always looked forward to her next call. Today, she was dismayed that a dispatch not even meant for her could upset her. Will’s misery was becoming contagious.

  Earlier, Will’s therapist had told them that his sudden-onset depression was “eminently treatable.” When she upped the diagnosis to “treatment-resistant major depressive disorder,” both Will and she had despaired.

  She checked the dashboard clock. It was 4:30 p.m. Worries about Will busied her brain. She wasn’t doing her job. She wasn’t scanning the other vehicles or pedestrians on the sidewalk looking for mischief-makers.

  Emma decided to do something she had never done before: ask for personal time. She called Sergeant Weeks on her cell phone.

  “Weeks,” her grumpy sergeant replied.

  “Sarge, Thorne here—”

  “Well if it’s not the Heroine of Hampshire,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “I need some personal time. Okay if I cut my shift short today and head home?”

  “Oh, fuck me. Who’m I going to get to cover the rest of your shift?”

  She hated groveling to Sergeant Stella Weeks, but she said, “Sarge, I really need to get home.”

  “Okay, Emma, you go home, but you’ll have to make up the time.”

  Emma dismissed Stella as she made a U-turn in the middle of Main Street.

  "Will,” she called from the front door, “it’s me. Where are you?”

  No answer, but she didn’t expect one.

  Before going upstairs, she glanced in the living room, where they used to read, watch TV, and snuggle; into the dining room, which they hadn’t used in months; and through the kitchen, where breakfast’s dirty dishes triggered a wash of guilt. In their bedroom, Will sat on the floor with his back against the wall. In one hand, he held a book. His other hand covered his face. Will’s brown hair was matted and unkempt. He wore a bathrobe, a pair of sweat pants, and white athletic socks. He hadn’t taught his class at Yale—Literature and the Environment—in three months.

  “Oh, it’s you.” He did not look up.

  Emma knelt beside him and gathered him into her arms. To her surprise, he wrapped his arms around her and held on tightly. For a spell, they stayed like that not saying anything. His hair smelled like sour milk.

  “Bad day?” she finally whispered.

  She caressed his hair and his cheeks. He muttered, “Worse than yesterday.”

  Right or wrong, she tried to present a strong face to Will in the belief that he would gain strength from that. When she heard him say those words, though, she felt tears pop out of her eyes. She hugged him to hide them.

  “Cry all you want. That’s all I do.” He began to cry, too. She kissed each of his eyes in turn and tasted his salty sadness.

  “What are you reading?” she finally asked.

  He held the book for her to see. She was surprised to see the Holy Bible. Bits of torn paper marked specific pages. In the years of their marriage, she had never known Will to enter a church, funerals and weddings excepted. They had said their own vows in the city clerk’s Office in Hampshire before her father, the chief of police and a justice of the peace.

  “Is it helping?”

  “Not in the least. I’m reading the Book of Job.”

  “Are you sure—?”

  “What else should I be reading?” he said. “I’m not looking for the part where Jesus makes the blind man see.”

  “Maybe you should,” she said tenderly.

  “Here, listen to this.” He opened to one of the marked pages. “Job says, ‘My face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids is deep darkness.’ How effing relevant is that? And this: ‘Although I am blameless, I have no concern for myself; I despise my own life.’ ” Will’s voice rose a notch. “Or this from Job 10:21, ‘Before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and utter darkness.’ ”

  “Don’t say that. You’re going to get through this. We’re going to get through this. You’ll see. I promise.”

  Before I go to the place of no return, Emma repeated in her mind. That wasn’t Job speaking.

  She rose to her feet and helped him up. He dropped the Bible. “Let’s go upstairs. We can take a bath together.”

  Will acquiesced, as hollow as a dead tree.

  Upstairs, in the tub, he zoned out. He submitted to a body wash with no more connection than a thousand-yard stare. Emma turned him around so that he was between her legs and washed his hair with shampoo and a pitcher. As much as she wanted it to be different, theirs was a moment of intimacy which lacked any intimacy.

  Late in the afternoon, she fed him Campbell’s Healthy Request Chicken Noodle in bed. She would have cooked him her best stab at a gourmet meal, but he hardly ate anything she served him. He finished half the soup.

  He surprised her when he broke the silence. “Georgia stopped by this morning. She is so inappropriate.”

  “How so?”

  “She brought me a book.”

  “What’s inappropriate about that?
Seems thoughtful to me. Maybe, a new book’ll take your mind off—”

  Angrily he said, “She gave me that book about Charlie Manson, Helter Skelter. Think that’s appropriate?”

  He threw his spoon onto the tray and announced that he was ready for bed.

  Emma had to agree with Will. Georgia’s internal governor had slipped again.

  She served him his evening cocktail of psychoactive drugs—the shrink called the rationale antidepressant polypharmacy—and a zolpidem sleeping pill. Will slept about twelve hours a day.

  Will said with a smile, which momentarily reminded her of the old Will, “The quack says, ‘You can’t get better if you don’t sleep.’ ”

  She climbed into bed, spooning him. Although she was dressed, he was naked. They hadn’t had sex since Christmas. Will was a generous lover. She missed the pleasures he gave and those she returned: the way he would kiss her breasts, the way she would stroke his stomach. Mostly, she missed the intimacy after climax, when the security of a cuddle overwhelmed any desire to talk.

  In time, Will’s breathing slowed as the sedative numbed his misery. Minutes later, he was in the embrace of what he called his Blessed Oblivion.

  Twilight fell on Hampshire.

  Job’s phrase—before I go to the place of no return—haunted Emma. Could Will actually do it? Would he?

  Deerfield Street, in the New Forest section of Hampshire, was quiet in the evening. The kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of wine, was in the back, garden-side. She swirled the wine, creating a mini-whirlpool in her wineglass.

  There was no denying that Will was making her miserable, too. Yet she still believed, heart and soul, that she could help him recover. She didn’t understand the root of his depression, but perhaps that was incomprehensible.

  Emma’s dad, who had raised her by himself, had given her the greatest gift a parent can bestow: self-confidence and a can-do attitude. She had depended on these gifts throughout her life. Emma knew how to solve problems … with one frightening exception.

  She dialed the home telephone number of Will’s therapist, who accepted the after-hours call without complaint. She took Emma’s report of Will’s suicidal thoughts seriously and suggested that Emma bring him in for an unscheduled appointment the next day.

  Emma poured herself another glass of wine, appreciating the calming buzz.

  She stared at the phone in her hand.

  God, I’m thirty-six years old, and the only person I want to phone is my Dad.

  She dialed Archie’s number. It was 9:00 p.m.

  He sounded groggy. “Hey, Baby, I’m hoping this is about Will, since you just woke me up.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad, I had to talk to somebody.” She began to cry, and she didn’t bother to muffle her sobs.

  “Hey, hey, Baby. What’s going on?”

  “I think Will is considering suicide. Dad, I don’t know what to do anymore.”

  “I’m so sorry. I truly am. Will’s good people. Have you called his shrink?”

  “I called her just before I called you. I have an appointment for Will tomorrow.”

  “Then I think you’re doing all you can for tonight. Do you want me to come over?”

  “No, I’ll manage. Thanks, though. I’ll check on him every once in a while, but he’s taken a sleeping pill, so I doubt he’ll wake up.”

  Archie said, “I’ll talk to Sergeant Weeks in the morning, tell her you won’t be coming in.”

  Emma couldn’t help an involuntary laugh. “That’ll piss her off.”

  “You let me worry about that. You just take care of Will. And more importantly, take care of yourself, Baby. Call me if you need me. I will always be here for you. I love you. Bye.”

  “Bye, Dad,” she said.

  Left on her own, Emma realized that she hadn’t been shopping in over a week. Food and household supplies were low. She decided to drive over to Hampshire’s only 24-hour market.

  Before leaving, she checked Will. He was sawing logs, that was for sure. He was gone to the world … in more ways than one.

  Emma left the house, not worried about him for the time being.

  Around 10:00 p.m., Emma, with armfuls of grocery bags, unlocked her door on Deerfield Street. She put all the groceries away and poured herself another glass of wine.

  Driven by months of overthinking all things Will, she again checked on him. Unusually, the door to the bathroom was closed. Will never closed the bathroom door. Assuming he was in there, she sat on the bed to wait until he was finished. The Bible, which had recently been tearing into him, rested on his pillow, squared off so that it was precisely lined up with the pillow’s edges. She stared at it. It struck her as odd. She looked back at the bathroom door. She couldn’t hear running water, the sloshing of tub water, or the stream of pee. She stared at the closed door as she had stared at the book: uncertainly, but with a growing feeling that today would be different.

  Finally, she sprang into action.

  The bathroom was empty.

  Frantically, she searched the rest of the house. She raced from room to room. She burrowed under every bed. Sweeping aside clothes on hangers, most of which dropped to the floor, she checked the closets. She ran down to the basement, looked behind the furnace and the hot water heater. She kept shouting Will’s name over and over until her throat hurt. Emma somehow knew she was not going to find Will, but she couldn’t stop looking. She went to the garden in the back. She threw open the door to the garden shed and looked inside, anywhere a human being could fit. She re-checked the kitchen. Will, who had not left the house without her in three months, had disappeared.

  She re-searched the house until she finished in the bedroom where she had started. There was no sign of a struggle; the front door had been locked as usual, as had the kitchen door to the garden. His bureau was full, and his wallet, which he hadn’t carried in months, was on top of the bureau. Credit cards, ID, and cash all inside. His cell phone was there, too. She checked the top drawer. His passport was where he kept it. Will, stoned to unconsciousness by zolpidem, had somehow left the house with nothing.

  How was that even possible?

  She could only fear the very worst. Yet, where was he?

  Emotions gut-wrenched her thinking—horror, impotence, fear, sadness, and, yes, guilt for leaving him alone. Again, where was he? What had he done? Had he hurt himself? How would he be able to? And, yet again, where the hell was he? Her despair only increased her fear. She leaned her back against the bedroom wall. Her knees buckled. As she slid to the floor, her shoulder knocked a picture off the wall. The shatter of glass on the wood floor was too much. She looked at the ruined frame. The jagged glass had cut into a photograph she had taken of Will. She battered her temples with her fists until they hurt.

  With Will gone, Emma couldn’t imagine anything worse could happen, but she was wrong.

  4

  Silver Alert

  The bedroom grew smaller and smaller. Emma felt she couldn’t breathe. She had this horrendous lump in her throat, which she would carry with her for days. She later learned that there was a name for it, a globus, the same thing shrinks called “the lump of grief.” Then, frightful chills overwhelmed her, even though the bedroom was warm. Her whole body shivered as if a sudden fever had spiked. She knew, absolutely, that the life she’d lived and loved was over. Bitter and angry tears came again and wouldn’t stop. Will, where are you? She couldn’t stand her bedroom for another second. She hauled herself to her feet and crunched over broken glass, ran downstairs and out the front door.

  Taking deep breaths of the May air, Emma sat on the front steps. She shut her eyes. Her head dropped into tremulous hands. She couldn’t stop shaking.

  Eyes closed, she imagined Will getting into his car. He was wearing a bathrobe and sweat pants. He backed carefully out the driveway and drove away. He drove right, left, then right again until he reached the State Highway, Route 88. He was talking to himself, but Emma couldn’t hear what he was saying. At the tow
n line, he gradually increased his speed. There were no cars in front of him. Fifty, sixty, then seventy. He maxed out at eighty-eight. Flying without due regard, he crossed the Broken River. At the west edge of Simpson’s cornfield, a railroad bridge, long disused, spanned the highway.

  He unclipped his seatbelt.

  Will pressed the accelerator until it contacted the floor, and he aimed his car at the concrete abutment on the north shoulder of 88.

  The impact forced the engine into the passenger compartment. It crushed his legs. At the same moment, the instant deceleration—ninety-miles-an-hour to zero in .001 seconds—threw his body forward. His head crashed through the front windshield. Simultaneously, it struck concrete, twenty-feet-thick.

  Like a watermelon dropped from a skyscraper, Will’s head exploded.

  Emma screamed. She jerked her head upright. In the driveway, Will’s Audi rested in the shade of a maple tree, untouched for months.

  She called Dad first, of course. He was all she had. After voicing his sympathies over the phone, it didn’t take Archie long to get down to business: “Wait for me outside the house. Do not go back inside the house. For the time being, we’ll treat it as a crime scene until we know more. I’ll be there ASAP. On my way, Baby. Hang tight!”

  Already outside, Emma felt useless. Continuing to blather wasn’t helping. After a few quiet minutes, her spine straightened. Anger gradually pushed her despair into a corner of her brain. Putting feelings aside was never easy for Emma. She was naturally an emotional person. No histrionics usually, but she cared deeply about the things that mattered to her. Will was foremost among them. Her only task going forward was to save him if she could … and find him if she couldn’t.

  There was enough of the cop in Emma to work the angles, come what may. She saw only three possibilities. Will had gone to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and utter darkness. He’d been considerate enough to not make a mess in the house. Or, someone had kidnapped Will. His parents were wealthy. Everyone in Hampshire knew that. Even if Emma didn’t have the money, his parents would pay anything to get their only son back. Finally, some person or persons unknown had murdered Will and removed his body. There was no evidence of that, besides which it was patently inconceivable. Until recently, Will had lived a charmed life. Emma had never met a soul who didn’t immediately warm to him.